Page, the co-founder, now CEO, at Google gives a personal, insightful interview on his leadership philosophy and innovation thinking at Google. One of the defining moments, writes Levy, ‘’As an undergrad at the University of Michigan, he found inspiration in a student leadership-training program called LeaderShape, which preached “a healthy disregard for the impossible.” According to Page, this strongly shaped his thinking that led to the Google we know today.

This is exactly the kind of innovation thinking, the kind of program we have been developing and running over the last two years. Walt Disney said ‘’It’s kind of fun to do the impossible’’, and that’s the essence of our last book ‘’Dream Bigger’’. It is this philosophy we believe will be required to reinvent dying industries and launch amazing strategic transformations. It’s the leadership mindset for a new breed of leaders. For innovation leaders.

Larry Page calls this “Living by the gospel of 10x. Most companies would be happy to improve a product by 10 percent’’, not Google. Instead, Larry and his team drive for ’’Thousand-percent improvement, this requires rethinking problems entirely, exploring the edges of what’s technically possible, and having a lot more fun in the process’’. This is Google thinking big, Google’s “Moon shot Philosophy”.

In “Dream Bigger” we write:

What if you could change the future of your company?

Where would you begin?

What would be your radically ambitious dreams?

What would be your mind-numbingly awesome first steps?

Through our teaching and consulting we meet thousands of people.

Too few are truly recklessly ambitious.

Too few are truly trying to achieve the impossible.

We want to change that.

Our goal is to help you and your company Dream Bigger

– and execute successfully.

Because we fundamentally believe,

“if you can dream it, you can do it”.

So let us.

But not all executives have the courage to do just this. Too few are recklessly ambitious. Too few have moon shots. Too many are stuck in an operational mindset, trying to defend their core legacy business model, rather than inventing the future.

Says Page “I worry that something has gone seriously wrong with the way we run companies. If you read the media coverage of our company or of the technology industry in general, it’s always about the competition. … That’s why most companies decay slowly over time. They tend to do approximately what they did before, with a few minor changes… But incremental improvement is guaranteed to be obsolete over time. Especially in technology, where you know there’s going to be non-incremental change”

Page’s view is reflected in the theme of the upcoming Strategic Management conference, Inside Outliers: Driving Systemic Change states “Being positively different is the goal of strategic management” That of course requires us to think differently, act differently and the courage to break out of industry norms.

‘’Why don’t we see more people with that kind of ambition?’’ (10x), asks Levy.

Page’s reply is very, very insightful: It’s not easy coming up with moon shots. And we’re not teaching people how to identify those difficult projects. Where would I go to school to learn what kind of technological programs I should work on? You’d probably need a pretty broad technical education and some knowledge about organization and entrepreneurship. There’s no degree for that. Our system trains people in specialized ways, but not to pick the right projects to make a broad technological impact’’.

To develop organizations for the future, we believe Innovation and Innovation thinking needs to become everyone’s job. We need to fundamentally rethink training, development and education. To succeed in this paradigm, leaders need to rethink their roles, master new skills, learn new tools and understand how to drive strategic innovation. They can all begin by reading Larry Page and his leadership philosophy.

Instead, we bring paper, lots and lots of paper. We’ve packed some eight Moleskin Notebooks, some 3000 pages of notes and sketches and, of course, three copies of “Dream Bigger: Your Personal Innovation Sketchbook”. All of it containing our on-going research and background work for our upcoming book “Strategy Tools for the Next Generation”. Due late 2013, we plan to spend the coming weeks for a deep dive into the material we have collected.

Over the coming 80+ days we aim to write, reflect, surf, kitesurf, meet up with our Brazilian friends and have ample time to think, chill and generally enjoy the Brazilian lifestyle. Our daily batch of homegrown coconuts are a daily fix as we slowly adapt to the local conditions. As one of my colleagues at BI Norwegian Business School recently said: “simply enjoy”.

Like this:

SHL Dubai, Fokus Bank, Statoil, Cisco, SR-Bank, Halliburton, DNB, Kaospilots, Peanuts, Webstep and Noreco are just some of the firms getting their hands on “Dream Bigger: Your Personal Innovation Sketchbook” in its first ten days. Already, the team behind the book has shipped 40 per cent of the first edition and the second edition is already being planned.

Dubai, The US, Germany, Brazil and Denmark are some of the countries receiving the book these hectic first weeks. We particularly love the fact that a lot of early readers have come back to buy ten-packs for their teams. The book ships in packs of ten, so it’s an easy order for anyone.

We are also happy to hear some of the early reviews:

“A masterpiece”
– Kaospilot, IT-consultant

“Sheets of paper has never brought so much inspiration. Consider me a Pirate!’’
– Project Manager

“Love it! Where can I get more for my team?”
– Leadership developer

What are your thoughts? Join the Book’s Facebook Group and connect on Twitter. Join us a Dream Bigger hops around the globe.

Like this:

We are proud to announce Kristian Reinertsen joining us as Project Manager. Kristian will be in charge of global social media, marketing and sales of Dream Bigger: Your Personal Innovation Sketchbook. He’ll be running the project from May to late August.

I haven’t formally introduced myself to all of you who’ve joined Christian Rangen’s Dream Bigger group. So here’s the short introduction:

As you well can see, my name is Kristian Reinertsen, and I am one of the student mass at BI Norwegian Business School. I’m currently undertaking my second year of a Bachelor in Marketing Management.

On the side, I’m a 21-year old father to an amazing son who’s about to turn 3. Going into our sixth year, me and his mom is still together, planning to get ourselves a lovely house somewhere in Stavanger (hopefully, before I major at BI).

So why am I here?

I would describe myself as an open individual. I speak my mind. I openly say out my dreams, and I pursue them with passionate eager and empathy.

Some would say I was lucky to have the opportunity to get Christian’s course “Innovation & Entrepeneurship” at BI, and by chance; deeply relate to it’s content, thinking and possibilities. I would agree.

I believe “Innovation” (which is a subject on “everybody’s” agenda today) will rewoke the “humanities”; as it becomes an integral part of ethics, of philosophy and change in business cultures around the world. It captures a part of the human spirit, or as Keynes’ would put it: A part of our animal spirits.

Long story short, I’ve been asked by Christian to try out this project. I happily said yes, knowing that I didn’t know very much of how to market a book. All that I did know, was that it’s a really cool book. I wrote a short review of it, which I will post after this.

My personal goal this summer: Create engagement and conversation around the book’s value proposition: “Inspire to do more; Dream Bigger”. And of course, to sell a helluva lot of books…

“Imagine if every one of your employees, at every level, and at every location, had been trained in the principles, skills and tools of innovation.”
– Skarzinsky & Gibson

That’s our goal with Dream Bigger, and it will continue with “Strategy Tools for The Next Generation” next year. Consider this a preview. A start on the journey towards better understanding (“beyond the buzz-word”) of the mind-set that drives businesses forward into successful adventures.

I hope you guys will join us. Please post anything you find interesting on the subject. I will be commenting. We want pictures, sketches, inspirational quotes, YouTube clips, personal experiences, stories etc.. We’re also interested in how you use or are planning to use your very own Personal Innovation Sketchbook!